Scheduled pain: Why it's a go for UTSA

Updated 1:37 am, Friday, September 7, 2012

The Savannah State coach regrets what happened last week. He thinks “the embarrassment” will last longer than the guaranteed cut his school was given to play Oklahoma State.

There are likely some at UTSA who wonder what awaits them, too.

A year from now, after all, Texas A&M-Commerce won't be coming to the Alamodome for the Roadrunners' home opener. The same Oklahoma State that overwhelmed undermanned Savannah State 84-0 will.

It's a challenge, and a scary one. But unlike Savannah State, UTSA will get more than money out of this.

The Roadrunners aren't the same as Savannah State. By next season they will have maxed out their 85-scholarship limit. Savannah State, with 50, ranked at the bottom of nearly every major statistical category last season in the Football Championship Subdivision.

“In retrospect,” the Savannah State coach, Steve Davenport, said, “we probably bit off a bit more than we could chew.”

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In retrospect, they didn't have any teeth. The betting line was the largest in the history of college football, and OSU coach Mike Gundy might have doubled that had he not played everyone except for Dez Bryant's babysitter.

Given that, the Roadrunners will be in much better shape when they get into the ring next season with the heavyweight. Yes, someone will have shown them how to put on the gloves.

For a start-up program that has been jumping ahead as if in a checkers game, this leap is off the board. In the span of one year, UTSA will go from a home opener against a team that lost last week to Southeastern Oklahoma by 25 points to the 2011 Big 12 champions.

Had the landscape been different when this game was scheduled, maybe UTSA wouldn't have done it. At the time, the Roadrunners thought they would be playing as an independent. They needed all the Division I opponents they could find.

They agreed to their deal with OSU, in part, for the reason Savannah State did. After a severe beating, two kinds of bags will make them feel better: One filled with ice and one filled with T. Boone Pickens' money.

UTSA will get about $500,000 in guarantees, as well as a profitable home game.

But the Roadrunners didn't sign up for one game in Stillwater, Okla., as Savannah State did. They have a three-game contract, and this is telling of a program that plays in a dome in one of America's largest cities. Even top-20 teams see the benefits of a road game in San Antonio.

This has always been the dynamic that makes UTSA think it can be more. The school set a first-game attendance record last year at the Alamodome, and anyone who calls the school and is put on hold will hear the exact figure in a recording.

On a loop, they want you to know the number is 56,743.

The Roadrunners will be lucky to draw 25,000 this Saturday, but a dip should have been expected. Fans came out a year ago no matter who the opponent was. Expectations have changed.

Oklahoma State will address that, and UTSA athletic director Lynn Hickey is already throwing around this possibility. Will there be 60,000 in the dome a year from now?

That's what the Roadrunners want, and that's what they want to sell. While they enjoyed another first last week — beating their first Football Bowl Subdivision school — edging South Alabama was never the goal.

So they needed something to sell besides novelty. They needed to put themselves out there, showing both recruits and local consumers what they eventually want to become. They needed, at the same time, to force themselves to either get better or get crushed.